How well placed are you to deliver?

Managing and improving business operations

Alec Steel

UK National Audit Office

@alecsteel_

A whole

management

system

approach

How to change

What to focus on

Managing and improving business

operations

Quick quiz - name that public sector organisation…..

Share our insights from across

sectors

Central and local

UK government:

Private /

other

sectors:

International:

The role of the National Audit

Office

• We scrutinise public spending on behalf

of UK Parliament

• We help to hold government

departments to account for how they

use public money

• Our work helps public service managers

to improve performance and service

delivery, nationally and locally

A lot at stake for government

• Value for money at stake - £600 billion

spent on providing services 70% of staff in

operational roles

• 2005 – significant investment in operations

management across UK government

• 2011 - all departments must have a

continuous improvement strategy

• Using these principles to manage and

improve is a good thing……..if done well

What we mean by ‘government’

• It is big

• It is complicated

• It does everything

• It has all the complications of a

multinational corporation…

• …plus some more

The questions we’re

interested in answering

1. How capable is an organisation in

managing and improving business

operations?

2. What are an organisation’s priority

business problems?

3. How can this understanding be used

to achieve sustainable

improvement? 5

Our components of good

operations management

Using Information

to manage and

improve

performance

Using continuous

Improvement to

target areas of

most benefit

Using Strategy

to define and

focus process

activity

Helping People

manage and

improve process

performance

Ensuring the end to

end Process has the

capacity and

capability to meet

demand

Operations and Process

Management

1 2

345

Strategy Information People

Alignment between the

‘corporate centre’…

….and operational

delivery

Testing 40 questions across

the 5 areas

7

ImprovementProcess

Management

Alignment of the organisation across the 5 areas – the ‘corporate centre’

Alignment of operational delivery – services / processes

UK government capability 2015

Using strategy to inform operations

Improving the business

8

Average operations and process management maturity

Relevant for all types of

organisation

8

Average operations and process management maturity

Relevant for all types of work

What to focus on

8

Key theme: customer focus

8

Key theme: end to end system

8

Key theme: management and

leadership

8

Key theme: using information

8

Improvement programmes ≠

more capable organisationsAverage process management maturity

Doing it right or doing it now?

Time

Improvement

‘building a better

organisation

system’

‘applying tools’

Moving on from a localised

benefit approach

Operational / specific

process focus

Organisation

approach

1

2

3

Challenge – how are we doing now….

Achieving benefits does not start with doing

improvement activity

…what should we prioritise to build an

effective management system

8

Thanks for your time

Want to continue the conversation?

• @alecsteel_

• alec.steel@nao.gsi.gov.uk